Reality slap

Murphy's Law paid an extremely painful visit Sunday to the stadium the Browns call home. Actually, there are seven of them. The first and seventh applied to what unfolded in the club's ghastliest performance of the young 2021 National Football League season.

The first says, "If anything can go wrong, it will." That one lasted all afternoon against the unbeaten Arizona Cardinals. From a ragged beginning to an even more ragged conclusion, the Browns were nowhere close to being ready to play a football game.

The seventh law says that "left to themselves, things have a tendency to go from bad to worse." That one was written with the Browns in mind following their 37-14 battering by the still unbeaten Cardinals witnessed by a full house of stunned fans.

Nothing worked. The offense was offensive and not in a good way. The defense was even more offensive, again not in a good way. The same mistakes that plagued them in last Sunday's loss to the Los Angeles Chargers showed up again and again and again.

The Browns didn't stand a chance in this one. They kept beating themselves as quarterback Baker Mayfield personally gifted the Cardinals defense with two fumbles and an interception -- not to mention the five times he was sacked -- in the club's most inept and sorry performance since the Hue Jackson era.

Entering the season, the Browns were one of the favorites to not only reach the postseason for the second season in a row, but seriously challenge for their first-ever appearance in the Super Bowl. Right now, thinking like that falls under the category of dreaming.

This clearly is the worst a Kevin Stefanski team has looked in his 23-game tenure as head coach. He has an awful lot to unpack as he tries to put this 3-3 team back together and he has only a few days until a Thursday night date at home against the Denver Broncos.

He has an awful lot of correcting to do at 76 Lou Groza Blvd. in Berea. There's a whole mess of cleaning up to do. The head coach does not like excuses so let's not talk about the absence of offensive tackles Jedrick Wills Jr. and Jack Conklin and running back Nick Chubb.

Why the Browns ran only seven times in the first half is a question only Stefanski can answer as his offense sputtered on its first four possessions as Cards quarterback Kyler Murray led his offense to five straight possessions that put points on the scoreboard, 23 to be exact.

In a believe-it-or-not moment, the Browns actually pulled to within a deceiving nine points on the final play of the first half when Mayfield and Donovan People-Jones hooked up on a 57-yard Hail Mary that, as it turned out, gave people false hope this one was far from over.

Yes it was because the defense, which is becoming more clueless by the game, still can't defend against the pass. And here we are after game six. It's supposed to be the other way around by now. Opposing receivers continue to come wide open due to blown coverages. Confusion reigns in the secondary.

Denzel Ward and rookie Greg Newsome II were back from injury. Made no difference. Ward was flagged twice for pass interference. Newsome, back after a three-game respite on injured reserve, looked just like, well, just like a rookie.

The offense does not escape blame for a second half that produced a robust zero points. Mayfield was battered throughout the game by a relentless Cardinals pass rush that sent him to the medical tent with a recurrence of his left shoulder injury in the first half and the bench late in the game when Stefanski mercifully yanked him.

To make matters worse, the Browns lost running back Kareem Hunt, filling in for Chubb, with what appeared to be a right calf injury with 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter. He pulled up short on a fourth-and-4 pass at the Arizona seven that was dropped by Odell Beckham Jr. in first-down territory.

The pain was bad enough that he had was placed on what some used to call the meat wagon, which wheels players to the dressing room if they can't walk back. Not a good sign especially with Chubb temporarily shut down. 

It comes down to this with the next game just a few days away. Stefanski has been putting out so many fires in the last couple of weeks, there isn't nearly enough time to right this ship by then. What looked so good after the first four games despite a few warning signs has turned into a disaster in progress.

It wasn't supposed to be this way at this juncture. The secondary, most of whom apparently are slow learners, is getting worse. The pass rush has all but disappeared. The crisp tackling that stood out early in the season, has gone stale.

And the head coach/playcaller seems to have lost his way philosophically. Just because he lost his top running back doesn't mean you turn over the game to a quarterback who has shown lately he has lost his ability to make plays.

Extending plays used to be one of Mayfield's strengths. Not anymore. 

Combine that with a defense that has regurgitated 84 points in the last two games and you get a football team on the verge of turning a season that included "Super Bowl" in the thoughts of many throughout the NFL universe and trashing it.

It will be interesting to see how Stefanski handles his first genuine crisis since taking over. He has enjoyed the journey thus far. The hard part of the job has arrived.